Intentionally and mindfully tune into where God is moving in the rhythms of everyday life and respond with faith and hope.
We all need anchor points--routines, rituals, spiritual practices--to help us feel grounded in our daily lives. While these everyday moments fill most of our days, disruptions at other times break up those daily rhythms and leave us searching for new ways to feel close to God. This study is an invitation for readers to spend time noticing the ways that the ordinary dailyness of life invites us into the presence of God, giving us ways to connect the stories of the Bible with our everyday experiences.
In Grace in the Ordinary, best-selling author and beloved Christian educator Elizabeth Caldwell offers eight everyday experiences that naturally touch all our lives--from the mundane to the surprising to the dramatic--and explores how the experiences of ordinary people in the Old and New Testaments can speak to our contemporary contexts. These eight pairings of the everyday with Scripture include
- Food: The Passover and manna stories in Exodus invite our thinking about the ways in which God provides and our hungers are satisfied.
- Ability: The healing of the woman with a bent back in Luke helps us consider the reality of how we are all differently abled and the difference between healing and curing.
- Fear: We see how Hagar faces fear when she is sent into the desert with her son to die and learn how we can face these disruptions to the ordinary.
- Choice: Through the stories of Vashti and Esther, we see that the choices we make in any ordinary day make a difference in our lives and the lives of others.
- Conversations: The story of the disciples unexpectedly meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus helps to reveal the importance of listening and paying attention to others.
- Sharing: Mary and Martha show us ways of sharing and offering hospitality.
- Change: We see the ways change impacted the widow of Zaraphath and her son through healing and miracles and are reminded of the importance of balance.
- Rest: Jesus seeking solitude shows us ways to do the same.
Each chapter closes with questions for reflection for groups and individuals and a spiritual practice, such as listening, encouraging others, and practicing hospitality. Grace in the Ordinary invites readers to keep discovering how God's presence shows up in the same sorts of daily routines, challenges, and unexpected circumstances that make up the human experience across time, whether in the first century or the twenty-first, and provides new ways of practicing faith in our lives and in the world around us.
